Pub Life Kitchen, Ultimo

We thought at first we were cursed. We wanted to smash burgers on a Saturday night, but after commenting on one of Jovan Curic’s (@jovanananan) photos on Instagram, I was gutted to find out that they were actually closed for a function. We reshuffled our plans and decided on Sunday lunch, only to find out via the Pub Life Kitchen Facebook page that there are NO BRGRS because they do a special Parkmeats gig every Sunday.

No matter, we finally broke our curse the following week. And good lord, it was glorious. I’m a sucker for cheeseburgers, so I knew that’s what I had to order. The heavens sang. My heart skipped a beat. There was so much goodness in one burger: acidity from pickles, two melted slices of American jack cheese, red onion, ketchup, and mustard. I found the beef patty too big, but seriously – that’s a good problem to have. I’m just gonna go ahead and say it: this is definitely one of the best burgers I’ve had in Sydney.

We also tried The O.G., which had an even bigger beef patty (200g), with caramelized onion, tomato, iceberg and a roast garlic and lime aioli. I was actually a big fan of the iceberg adding crunch and freshness. The Bird was a beautiful creation of Dorito fried chicken, slaw, jack cheese, mayo and tomato. This one’s a textural masterpiece – the chicken was ultra-crunchy, as was the slaw.

FYI, all BRGRS come with fries and ketchup. But we know extra sides of bone marrow gravy were in order. YEP. It’s good, even though the bone marrow flavor wasn’t that noticeable. I drowned every fry inside that pot of gravy with glee. The guys running this joint are super-duper friendly. We’re told to come back on a Wednesday when they do Burger Experiments – crazy stuff like macaroni and cheese burgers make the rounds. We’ll be back for sure.